Staunton spectator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1849-1896, 1887-11-30

quisite chrysanthemums as once, that there
fore you are on the wrong road. The road
will bring You out at the same gate whether
you walk with the stride of an athlete or
come up on crutches. Thousands of Chris
tians morbid about their experiences and
morbid about their business, and morbid
about the present, and morbid about the
future, need the sermon am now preach
ing.
Another practical use of this subject is
for the young. The theory is abroad that
they must first SOW their wild oats, and
afterwards Michigan wheat. Let me break
the delusion. Wild oats are generally sown
in the liver, and they can never be pulled
up. They SO pre- occupy that organ that
there is no room for the implantation of a
righteous crop. You see aged men about
us at eighty, erect, agile, splendid, grand
old men. How much wild oats did they
SOW between eighteen years and thirty?
None, absolutely none. God does not very
often honor with old age those who have
been in early life sacrificed swine on the al
tar of the bodily temple. Remember, o
young man, that while in after life, and
after years of dissipation you may perhaps
have your heart changed, religion does not
change the liver. Trembling and stagger-
ing along these streets to-day are men, all
bent and deoayed, and prematurely old for
the reason that they are paying for liens
they put upon their physical estate before
they were thirty. By early dissipation
they put on their body first mortgage,
and . second mortgage, aud third mort
gage to the devil, and these mortgages are
now being foreclosed, and all that remains
of their earthly estate the undertaken will
soon put out of sight. Many years ago, in
fulfillment Of my text, dart struck through
their liver, aud it is there yet. God forgives,
but outraged physical law never, never,
never. That has Sinai but no Calvary
Solomon in my text knew what he was
talking about. He had in early life been
profigate. and he rises up on his throne of
worldly splepdor to sbriek out warning to
all the centuries. David, bad in early life,
but good in later life, cries out with an
agony of earnestness, Remember not the
sins of my youth"
Stephen A. Douglas gave the name of
'squatter sovereignty" to those who went
out West and took possession of lands and
held them by right of preoccupation. Let
a flock of sins settle on your heart before
you get to twenty-five years of age, aud
they will in all probability keep possession
of it by an internal sqoatter sovereignty.
81 promise to pay at the bank five hundred
dollars six months from date" says the
promissory note. 81 promise to pay my
life thirty years from date at the bank of
the grave, says every infraction of the
Ia VS. Of your physical being.
What? Will mans body never COM
pletely recovec from early dissipation in
this world? Never. How about the world
to GOMEZ Perhaps God will fix it up in the
resurrection body so that it will not have
to 20 limping through all eternity; but get
the liver thoroughly damaged and it will
stay damaged. Physicians call it cancer Of
the liver, or hardening of the liver, or cir
rhosis of the liver, or Inflammation of the
liver, or fatty degeneration of the liver, but
Solomon puts all these pangs into one fig
urs and says: "Till fhe dart strike through |
his liver"
Hesiod seemed to have some hint of this
when he represented PrOmetheus for his
crimes fastened to a pillar and an eagle
feeding on his liver, which was renewed
again each night, so that the devouring
went on until fiually Hercules slew the
eagle and rescued Prometheus. And a |
dissipated early life assures ferocity peck
ing away and clawing away at the liver
year in and year out, aud Death is the only
Hercules who can break the power of its
beak or unciench it's claw. So also Virgil
aud Homer wrote fables about vultures
preying upon the liver, but there are those
here to-day with whom it is no fable, but q
terrific reality.
That young man smoking cigarettes and
smoking cigars has no idea that he is get
ting for himself smoked liver. That young
man has no idea that he has by early dissi-
patton SO depleted his energies that he will
go into the battle only half armed. Napo-
leon lost Waterloo days before it was
e., Id nnc tkon xnI IL r1
before it Was reinforced, and taken it di-
vision by division, he might have won the
day. but he waited until he had only one
hundred thousand men against two hundred
thousand. Aud here is q young man, who,
if he put all his forces against the regiment
of youthful temptations, in the strength of
God might drive them back, but he is al
lowing them to be reinforced by the whole
army of mid-life temptations, and when all
these combined forces are massed against
him and no Grouchy comes to help him,
and Blucher has come to help his foes what
but immortal defeat can await him?
Oh my young brother, do not make the
mistake that thousands all around you are
making, in opening the battle against sin
too late, for this world too late, and for the
world to come too late. What brings that
express train from St. Louis into Jersey
minutes early on the route, and that affect
ed them all the way, and they had to be
switched off here and switched off there and
detained here and detained there, and the
man who loses time and strength in the
earlier part of the journey of life will suffer
for it all the way through, the first twenty
years of life damaging the following fifty
years.
Some years ago a scientific lecturer went
through the country exhibiting on great
canvas different parts of the human body
when healthy, and different parts when dis
eased. Aud what the world wants now is
some eloquent scientist to go through the
country showing to our young people on
blazing canvas the drunkard's liver, the
ider's liver, the libertine's liver, the gam
bler's liver. Perhaps the spectacle might
stop some young man before he comes to
the same catastrophe, and the dart strike
through his own liver.
| My hearer, this is the first sermon you
have heard on the Gospel of Health, and it
may be the last you will ever hear on that
subject, and l charge you in the name of
God, and Christ, and usefulness, and eter
nal destiny, take better care of yodr health.
When some of you die, if your friends put
on your tombstone truthful epitaph, it
will read Here lies the victim Of late
suppers," or it will be: "Behold what
chicken salad at midnight will do for a
man," or it will be ''Ten cigars a day
closed my earthly existence" or it will be !:
''Sat down in cold draught and this is the
result" or it will be 81 died Of thin shoes
last winter" or it will be : 'sWent out with
out an overcoat and took this last chill, ;" or
it will be: ''rhought I could do at seventy
what did at twenty, and am here" or it
will be; ''Here is the consequence of sitting
half day with wet feet" or it will be
sThis is where have stacked my harvest
of wild oats," or, instead of words, the
stone cutter will chisel for an epitaph on
the tombstone two figures, namely, dart
and a liver.
There is kind of sickness that is beauti-
full when it comes from overwork for God,
or ones country, or ones own family. ]
have seen wounds that were glorious. After
the battle of Antietam in the hospital a
soldier in reply to my question "Where
are you hurt?" uncovered his bosom and
showed me cash that looked like a badge